Awaab’s Law, damp and mould

Compliance

Awaab’s Law, damp
and mould.

Damp and mould used to be treated as a maintenance annoyance and, too often, blamed on the tenant’s drying habits. That era is over. Social landlords now have legal deadlines for it, private renting is next, and a landlord who can show they acted is in a far stronger position than one who cannot.

Where the law came from

Awaab Ishak was a two-year-old boy in Rochdale who died in 2020 after prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s home. The rules that carry his name came into force for social housing on 27 October 2025. The Renters’ Rights Act lets the government apply them to private renting too, and its implementation roadmap puts that in a later phase, with the date still to be confirmed after consultation. The principle is simple: once a serious hazard is reported, the clock starts.

What it means now, and what is coming

In social housing, a landlord must now investigate a significant damp or mould hazard within 10 working days, tell the tenant in writing what was found, and make it safe within a further 5 working days, and emergency hazards must be dealt with within 24 hours. The private-sector version has not been set yet, so those exact deadlines do not bind a private landlord today. The sensible working assumption is the same, though: days, not months.

Alongside this sits the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act, which already lets a tenant take a landlord to court directly over a property that is unfit, and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, which councils use to assess hazards including damp, excess cold and fire risk.

The part landlords underestimate: evidence

Almost every dispute we have seen turns on records rather than facts. If a tenant reports mould and you send someone the same week, the difference between a resolved repair and a claim is whether you can show when it was reported, when you attended, what you found and what you did. A phone call that nobody wrote down is worth nothing eighteen months later.

What usually fixes it

Most of the damp we deal with in Manchester’s older housing stock is condensation rather than a leak or rising damp, and the fix is normally ventilation and heating rather than repainting. Extractor fans that actually run on a humidity sensor, trickle vents, insulation, and dealing with cold bridging solve far more cases than mould wash ever has. Where it is a genuine defect (a failed gutter, a slipped slate, a bridged damp course), painting over it simply restarts the clock.

Every report is logged with a date and a photograph, the tenant gets written acknowledgement, and the contractor visit is recorded against the property. Routine inspections include damp checks, so we usually find it before the tenant has to report it. You get the record whether or not it ever matters, and if it does, you have it.